Category: visual

With the inclusion of provocative works by Chris Ofili, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, and others, the 12th Sydney Biennale, which opens in May, seems ready (and eager?) for some Brooklyn Museum-style publicity. Museum of Contemporary Art Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor said the show will “no doubt attract attention with Guo-Qiang’s naked woman on a horse…Chris Ofili, the artist who uses elephant dung, and Yayoi Kusama’s soft phalluses…it may well create outrage.” Be careful what you wish for. – Sydney Morning Herald

Scottish painter Peter Howson has come clean about his dealings with Glasgow’s mafia underworld for the last 15 years. Internationally regarded for his “macho figurative paintings,” Howson explains “how his strange relationship with the world of crime began when he was visited in the 1980s by the kingpin of the Glasgow crime scene, the late Arthur Thompson, Sr., who offered cash on the spot for a canvas. Howson found himself supplying paintings to the city’s criminals for a fraction of the price charged by his London dealer. When he tried to renegotiate, he got death threats. Gangsters like art, it seems, but they like it cheap.” – The Guardian

“The art trade, the most discontented profession on earth apart from farmers, has been groaning for nine years about lack of buyers. In 1999, as times turned good, it groaned about lack of sellers. For all its moans, it has done well in pulling pictures out for sale.” The Maastricht European Fine Art Fair showcased a stellar body of “hidden treasures” this year. The Fair closed yesterday, but here’s a top-10 list of masterpieces still available for sale. – London Evening Standard

Artist’s painting is removed by city employees in Florida because figures in the painting weren’t wearing clothes. – Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Today the Philadelphia Museum of Art will unveil eight paintings that have been donated by two pioneer American art collectors. The gift, which consists of eight paintings by the artist group known as “The Eight,” and one work by an artist outside the group will substantially strengthen the museum’s 20th century collection.  Five of The Eight painters were known as Ashcan realists – artists who “took their subject matter from street life, which more academically inclined artists and critics found too coarse for fine art.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

The new Tate Britain hasn’t lost any of its edge for concentrating on the Brits. – The Times (UK)

In the second part of MOMA2000, in which the New York Museum of Modern Art has dismantled and rearranged their permanent collection, “Making Choices” examines the years between 1920 – 1960. “Iconic works are plucked from their usual place in Art 101 and placed in a new context; lesser-known works, rarely seen, emerge from museum storage; all the different arts are mixed together.” In this fashion, “the shows together ask not only that you, the viewer, encompass contradiction and paradox but that you acknowledge that good and evil sometimes draw from the same fires in the heart. Which is not a bad way to know the twentieth century.” – New York Magazine

No, it’s not Haacke and Giuliani. The Whitney Biennial is about to open, and for the first time there will be internet art. Just one question, though – what qualifies as internet art (and why do you need a museum in which to see it?) – U.S. News & World Report

The new Tate Britain has opened with some new ideas about what art means to be British. – The Observer (UK)

• The Tate Modern is set to open later this spring. Here’s a preview of the doings inside.–  The Sunday Telegraph (UK)

After it was discovered the Seattle Art Museum was in possession of a Matisse stolen by the Nazis during WWII, they were ordered to return it to its original heir. Then SAM tried to sue the New York art gallery who sold them the piece, but the judge threw out the case. In light of new evidence, however, the judge has decided to let the trial go ahead. – Seattle Times